My friend is organizing GothCruise 8!

Yes, you heard that right. Lots of goths on a boat!

This time it sails from NYC to Bermuda to St. Thomas to San Juan and back! I really want to go to this, but I will be just doing my annual Haunt Blogging Tour via Orlando. It all comes down to if I can afford it so soon after traveling half of the country.

They do a good job with this cruise from what I have heard. There is even a documentary about it!

Goth Cruise – trailer from Jeanie Finlay on Vimeo.

They have themed dances, gaming nights and all kinds of fun stuff. Deposit is only $50 so check it out! :D

Disney is releasing a branded version of the Sharp Galapagos 003SH in Japan. Users can get exclusive content, a Disney email address, and custom cases. It will be running a Disney branded version of Froyo (Android 2.2).

This might seem odd since Steve Jobs is on the Disney Board of Directors, but I remember reading that the iPhone wasn’t that impressive to Japanese audiences because they already had phones that were that good for a while. I can imagine that this along with Disney’s desire to customize everything in the OS influenced the decision to go Android. Let’s just hope they don’t customize it to be as mind-bendingly awful as the Disney website.

Some of you might know that while I am half Indian, I was not raised by my Indian parents so I don’t know very much about the culture. Recently I decided to learn more about my own heritage and I found lots of great things. I have been really liking some of these Bollywood films that I have found thanks to Netflix!

You can imagine how overjoyed I was when I saw that Disney has taken to making Indian films. I nearly fell off my chair with HOW AWESOME THIS LOOKS. No joke, dude looks like the Indian Johnny Depp.

This is Anaganaga Oka Dheerud, or Once Upon a Warrior. There isn’t much information available, but I found this from Wikipedia:

“Anaganaga O Dheerudu focuses on the journey of Moksha, a nine year old girl with special healing powers. The fantasy adventure film is set in the fictitious teardrop shaped land of Sangarashtra and explores the inseparable bond between man and the myths that remain relevant even today. The story focuses on the journey of a nine year old girl with special healing powers and her quest to save Sangarashtra from the tyranny of an evil Queen, played by Lakshmi Manchu. The girl portrayed by Harshitha is protected by a blind swordsman played by Siddharth who faces great adversity and helps the girl on her epic journey. Shruti Haasan plays a gypsy woman whose destiny is tied into that of the swordsman and plays his love interest.”

This film is out now and playing in the Indian cinema near me! I’m going to have to call them to see if they have English subtitles. I WANT TO SEE IT!

I believe this film is called a “Telugu” film and aimed at South India (Tollywood), but I don’t know what that means? Can someone explain to to me? I googled with confusing results.

- Here is a hilarious video about one guy’s account of his part time job working at Disney Parks:

- CNNGo has a great post about North Korean Theme Parks.

- Ever wonder what Space Mountain (Disneyland version) looks like with the lights on? Here:

- There is a new Jungle Trek tour (advance registration and $129 upcharge required) opening at Disney’s Animal Kingdom in Orlando that involved a scary trek across rickety bridges. I want to do this one! The price goes up to $180 later.

- MAC Cosmetics is coming out with a Wonder Woman makeup collection.

It is freezing here in New Jersey so I believe it is time to talk about THEME PARKS!

JAWS RIDE! JAWS RIDE! JAWS RIDE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

The JAWS ride at Universal Studios Florida is a ride that I hate and love at the same time. I would probably cry if they ever took it out of the park. (They probably never will, because Spielberg is a “consultant” for Universal Studios and gets 2 percent of the gate sales.)

Why did I say “hate” as well as “love”? I will have to share a story to explain that!

OK, back in the day when I was a teenager, I was an idiot. An amusing and well-meaning idiot, but an idiot just the same. I was lucky enough to get to Uni with a school field trip. My best friend and I went straight on the JAWS ride.

Well, Universal Studios has never been very good with the refurbishment. In fact, some of the rides are often desperately in need of repair. (When I was there last year the flying cow in the Twister attraction had a hole in it or something.) The JAWS ride is good now, but when I was here with my school the JAWS ride was in a sad state.

As you can see from the video above, the ride has a live operator that recites a script. Well, we would respond to everything he said and ask questions. (Told you I was an idiot.) However, the operator thought we were hilarious and started messing with us. Then we demanded when we’d see the “big fish”. He responded that it would come out in a second while laughing because we were sitting in the seating right near where he comes out.

Well, the “big fish” came out. His mouth opened, and his teeth fell out like a pair of dentures.

I guess something had come loose!

So, we immediately screamed in fright over the shark, stopped for a second and then bust out laughing, “OH MAN LOOK AT HIS TOOFS! LOOK AT THAT HE NEED A DENTIST MAN!!!!!!”

That was the worst ride ever and the best ride ever. To this day I still like the JAWS ride. I recommend that you try to ride it once in the daytime and once at night because it is different and awesome both times!